


Anagram

by thawrecka



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animal Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-06-27
Updated: 2003-06-27
Packaged: 2019-07-29 00:23:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16252829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thawrecka/pseuds/thawrecka
Summary: Tom Riddle is making a name for himself.





	Anagram

He had a page full of childish scratchings in his pocket. Many lines across the page, his name twisted around in silly nonsense words. He sometimes had to scribble over the letters in order to make sure not to use one twice.

He didn't like his name, see, or the way the nuns spoke it to him in the orphanage, his father's name with every complaint. He wanted to change it, deform it in some way. He sometimes wished there some magic he could use to reshape it. He thought about trying with polyjuice potion, but that would just be taking another person's name, and he still liked his own face anyway (that, at least, was his own).

He wasn't strictly supposed to be reading this spell book. There'd been that fiasco with the fire in the east wing. Still, as long as he was quiet and careful about it no one would make a fuss. Not that he cared. These were, after all, his late mother's things and he had a right to them.

When he read about unforgivable curses he thought of unforgivable things. Like being abandoned by a man with the same name. Like being forgotten by people who ought to care for him. He thought that a worse torture than Cruciatus could ever be, and he thought it with all the melodrama of a child.

Children with dead mothers are often obsessed with death, and so it was with him. If he'd been a muggle he would have read Gothic horror. Instead, his eyes ran over tiny print 'Avada Kedavra' with morbid glee.

* * *

He had 

his mother's wand in his hands and he'd practised and practised. He did it on the sly on the insects in the grounds and once on a rat that he found in the kitchen.

He was looking at the cat, the nun's stupid fat cat, and holding his wand in his hands. He whispered, softly but with force, and when the green smoke cleared the cat was dead. It was still, just like before, but it's eyes looked rounder than normal and it no longer hissed.

He was ready to begin.

* * *

He ran through the foliage surrounding the house, and snuck in the back door with the stolen key. They were just sitting down to dinner. His grandparents, sour faced and pinched, in their finest, were chewing silently. They cut their meat soberly and fit the chunks into their ragged mouths. His young father, with whom he shared his first and last names, was chewing on his potatoes and holding a glass of wine in his hands. The caretaker was out.

He made his way into the dining room, and they all paused where they were at the table, grandmother with her fork halfway to her mouth. His father looked as if he were about to say something.

The boy took his mother's wand from his sleeve and killed them all with ease and speed. There was no mess, except the clatter of a fork hitting the floor, meat and gravy hitting the shiny polished boards.

He left calmly and with little noise, replacing the key where he'd found it. Now he was the only Tom Riddle alive.

* * *

At school he was quiet and studious, with the aim of being a prefect.

This greatly impressed his potions teacher, who allowed him to borrow several books from the restricted section of the library. The teacher was clearly not too bright, but he was grateful all the same.

He took notes on loose sheets of paper, and placed them all neatly back into his folder at the end of the day. He would look through the sheets at night in bed, study them with the utmost care, and hide them under his pillow come daybreak.

On the back of one sheet were anagrams.

Lately he transferred his favourites into his diary, crossing them out until he found his favourite.

* * *

There was a hissing sound, which curled around his neck and slid into his ears. It seemed as if it were speaking his name -- his new name; the one he made. He followed the sound, a silent, slippery voice no one else could hear, until he found a door no one else could open, and went inside.

He had his diary in his pocket and a smile on his face. Already poor Tom was disappearing.


End file.
